2020 NAQT Missouri Qualifier Recap

A tournament record 40 teams attended the 2020 NAQT Missouri Qualifier at Columbia College on February 29, 2020.

The teams were originally divided into 7 pools of 5 or 6 for preliminary rounds 1-5.

After the preliminary rounds, teams were seeded 1-40 by position in preliminary pool, then record, then points per bonus. The top 16 teams advanced to four parallel championship pools, while the remaining 24 teams advanced to four consolation pools. Each pool played a round robin.

After round 8, St. Louis Patriots, St. Joseph Central A, Ladue A, and Thomas Jefferson A won their playoff pools to advance to the top 4 superplayoffs. After round 11, St. Louis Patriots were 3-0 in the superplayoffs while Ladue A was 2-1, setting up an advantaged final. Ladue A won the first game 355-150 to force a final deciding match, which the Patriots won 310-155 to earn their first NAQT Missouri Qualifier title!

For the small school title, Hallsville A finished seventh overall while Centralia A finished in eighth. The teams decided not to play a final, so the small school title was effectively decided by their round 10 game, which Hallsville won 295-100 to earn their eighth consecutive NAQT Missouri Qualifier small school title! Earning a spot in the top 16 overall, Weaubleau was awarded the Very Small School title.

The top 15% (6 teams) qualified for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament on May 22-24 in Atlanta. Congratulations to St. Louis Patriots, Ladue A, Central A, Thomas Jefferson A, North Kansas City A, and College Heights Christian for qualifying at this tournament.

Of our 40 teams, we had 13 small school-eligible teams, continuing Missouri's tradition of strong quizbowl participation by smaller schools. The top 30% of small school teams (4 teams) have qualified for the NAQT Small School National Championship Tournament on April 24-26 in Chicago. Congratulations to Hallsville A, Centralia A, Eldon, and Weaubleau for qualifying for the Traditional Public division of SSNCT! We also had five teams eligible to participate in the Open division of SSNCT; congratulations to Thomas Jefferson Independent and College Heights Christian for earning bids to SSNCT by finishing in the top 30% of eligible teams!

(All projected bids to NAQT national championships are pending official confirmation from NAQT.)

Since this tournament is platinum certified by PACE, the top 25% (10 teams) qualified for the PACE National Scholastic Championship in Chicago on June 6-7. Congratulations to St. Louis Patriots, Ladue A, Central A, Thomas Jefferson A, North Kansas City A, College Heights Christian, Hallsville A, Centralia A, Kickapoo, and Eldon A for earning bids to NSC!

Thanks to all of our talented staff who made this day of 205 quizbowl matches possible, getting everyone to lunch on time, finishing consolation rounds by 3:45, and completing the entire 13 round tournament by 5:45. The staff who did a fantastic job efficiently running the largest Qualifier to date include Aadyn from College Heights; Andrew, Braelynn, and Ethan from Hallsville; Jessi and Kaileigh from Houston; Melanie from North Kansas City; Logan Durk, Brett Kelley, Huzaifa Khan, Michael Menkhus, Michael Powers, Myles Steffes, Caden Stone, Ruth Temme, Felix Wang, and Dexter Wickham; coaches Scott Allen, Kathy Brandon, Drew Darr, Jen Farra, Jonah Krueger, Ginger Luetkemeyer, Josh Malecki, Jean Miller, Pat O'Keefe, Andrew Reynolds, Dale Schenewerk, Scott Walker, and John York; and fellow MOQBA members David Dennis, Stephanie Hull, Lisa McClary, Sean Phillips, Max Ryle, and Shelley Swoyer. We greatly appreciate all of these wonderful people for volunteering their Saturdays to fully staff such a large tournament; thanks to NKC coach Branden Stilwell for also volunteering to moderate. Special thanks to founding MOQBA member Paul Nelson for returning from Maryland to moderate all thirteen rounds; Kyle Hill, Jacob O'Rourke, and Alex Smith for their invaluable help in the control rooms; and to Stephanie, Alex, Jacob, and Kyle for additional assistance with various tasks before, during, and after the tournament.

In addition, we are always extremely grateful for the outstanding support we consistently receive from Columbia College to help our events run smoothly. The tireless efforts and event planning expertise of Kerri Coley and the rest of the Columbia College team continue to make each tournament we host on their campus a great pleasure to run. We look forward to collaborating with Columbia College on future tournaments and hope to have dates for next season's Fall Championship and Qualifier confirmed soon.

Thank you once again for attending the 2020 Qualifier, and we hope to see you all again next year!